The things that used to be
by jaegerbott
Summary: Levi sees these flashbacks of a life that may have been and he wonders what it should mean.


There are days when Levi looks over that narrow back and sees an image entirely different. He sees green sometimes—a cape that's green and flowing wildly along to a powerful gust of wind. He sees that familiar mop of dark brown hair and it's a normal sight but then that he finds a sudden shine of warm sunlight washing over that mess of dark brown, capturing a body much smaller than the one he knows now. Yet, it's the same person and he knows it too.

And the one of the things that drives him crazy, closer to edge of insanity nowadays because he just can't seem to understand why, is when he sees one of the hands he knows all too well curled into fist and poised behind that narrow back like it was meant to be there.

And then, there are wings.

That is when Levi admits to himself that he might need some help because he has seen that back so many times and yet he can never figure out why he all of a sudden sees a pair of wings sprouting and feels that it's normal. It's familiar and it's good; it belongs on that back but Levi doesn't even know why.

But as warm and fulfilling as these images come across, even Levi sees monsters and it is when he sees that narrow back grow fifteen feet into something gruesome and inhumane that he wakes up with a quick heart and sweat dripping across his forehead.

"Levi?"

Levi's eyes snap wide and he looks over to his side to find dark brown hair strands peeking out from beneath think wool covers. A hand reaches out from underneath and pulls the cover low, and Levi meets curious, green eyes, still sleepy and fluttering but very much watching him carefully.

"You okay?" says Eren with a yawn. His sweater is falling off his shoulder, showing a bare collarbone, and when he stretches his feet, he kicks some of the cover off of his body, his navel exposed.

For a moment, Levi watches. Then, he reaches over to the side, grabs a pillow, and slams it over Eren's stomach, hearing a small 'oof' from the younger male. "Cover your stomach brat."

"Don't call me brat," Eren starts, his eyes closing and looking like he's just about ready to doze back to sleep any second. "I'm just three years younger than you, y'know?"

Levi moves to sit up, taking in a deep breath. He moves his hand to rub at the crick in his neck, a low groan slipping through his lips once his fingers manage to massage a painful spot. "Doesn't matter. You still watch cartoons every morning. With your pajamas still on." Finally satisfied, he slips back under the covers and soon finds a pair of arms wrapping around him. "You'll always be a brat to me."

At this, Eren only hums. Rolling onto his side, Levi could see how tired the brunet looks. Eren had been busy for two weeks now, having had to deal with new recruits over at the police station. Levi had said that newbies were always tiring to deal with since they were still relatively green and fresh from the academy. But Eren wouldn't listen and wanted to be the one to take on the helm of showing those guys what it meant to fight for humanity.

'Humanity.'

The word has been part of Levi's vocabulary since he'd first signed up for the duty and responsibility of being a policeman. He's spoken it, said it, protected it—the people, all the innocent lives—since he had started and, at this point in his life of age thirty, it's all innate to him.

But now, it's become foreign to him. When he thinks of humanity, when Eren roars about wanting to protect humanity, when police cadets swear of their duty to humanity, Levi can never fathom why a different sense of familiarity begins to wash over him. It's almost like the thought of humanity and protecting it is beginning to grow a whole new different meaning, and this is something that gets even Levi to suddenly wake up at night in a gross puddle of sweat and panic because there's suddenly something so dangerous with the word.

"I've never seen you afraid before," says Eren, one green eye peeking at him.

Levi clicks his teeth and removes Eren's hands off his body, soon enough pushing the younger male apart from him. "I've been afraid once or twice. Don't be an idiot." He rolls onto his back, looking through the darkness before his eyes and seeing the images he's come to see nowadays.

A green cape with wings, a curled fist, and a monster that's fifteen feet tall. Levi knows those images so well and yet not all. It's incredibly stupid.

"True but you look different tonight."

Eren has never sounded like this before, just as much as Levi has never wondered like this before.

"It's fine if you want to be the one that talks this time." There is enough moonlight streaming through the window for Levi to see Eren also lying on his back, looking at nothing, from out of the corner of his eyes. "You're always the one telling me to just say what's on my mind when something's bothering me. You should probably follow through too, Captain Levi."

'Captain Levi.'

The title had forced his mouth shut and him thinking. It was like with the word 'humanity.' Never before had this title—one that he'd been called for a long time now—had come across as something different to him before.

Maybe it was the old age. Maybe there was monotony, and it was the stirrings for something new and unrestricting that was making him see things. Maybe his brain was breaking and making him think differently, and that was why the things that were so familiar to him were suddenly starting to become so foreign.

"I think I knew you once." Levi says and stops there.

"Huh? What makes you think that?"

Even though he didn't want to say any actual reason, he did so anyways. The images he sees, the things that he hears, and the things are that changing, becoming different—the truth is that Eren has something to do with it, and it's terrible. They don't feel anything close to being closure and they give off nothing but the grim impression of death and disaster.

"Forget it. I'm getting old."

"You're thirty."

"And you're still a brat. Just back to sleep already, brat."

There's no reasonable way to explain the things Levi sees so he only chalks it up to old age actually starting to creep up on him. The familiarity that radiates from these things that he sees sometimes feels painful even though there's something nostalgic about them. But nostalgia or not, it is the idea that there had been some kind of reality, an actual universe and time, that existed where humanity was unkind but slain, where he had the power to kill men with a blade, and where Eren was a monster.

This is the first time in his life that he, Levi Ackerman, does not want to know the details, does not want to know more than he's seen.

But even if he says no, Levi does want to know. The questions are burning inside of him, and he thinks if he should actually bring them up to Eren and ask if he's seen them too.

A sudden and loud snore interrupts his thoughts, and through the darkness, Levi could see Eren's sleeping figure, mouth open with drool falling from the corner of his lips. Levi clicks his teeth and buries himself further into his blankets, throwing most of it over Eren.

It's not important.

That life—whatever it is—is over and done with, Levi decides. If all he saw were images of the past, then he would rather stick to the present. If it was painful, then it's not worth it to dwell on it now.

There are much more important things to think about _now_ than what used to be or what was done.

…like stopping a certain brunet from kicking over their blanket for the fifth time that night.


End file.
